The camp at Cannock this past weekend didn't exactly run to plan but the final result of our game on home turf against the Olympic Gold Medallists was extremely promising.
The typical English summer weather played a great part in the amount of hockey we played during our four day camp at Cannock this past week. We arrived on Wednesday last week and after 40 minutes on the pitch were faced with an extreme downpour and thunder storm and a waterlogged pitch, hampering our training and being tackled by water so we abandoned training and headed back to the hotel. The session the next day followed a similar pattern but at least we were able to get a full hour on the pitch this time!
Our first game against Germany on the Thursday night ended in a one all draw. We were reasonably happy with our play and felt we were playing much better than we had when we played Japan - at least we actually held the ball for more than a couple of passes! We scored first though a great rebound on a corner from Mel Clelow (Canterbury) but unfortunately Germany equalised through a deflection with seconds on the clock.
Again Friday's training was a wash out and we trained indoors with an hours Pilate's session taken by Rachel Walker (Olton). We also had a meeting from UK Doping about the 'whereabouts' system. This system has been designed to test all elite athletes outside of competition. So drug testers can turn up anywhere to test us at home, at work, whilst we are training! anywhere basically there is no escape and to aid this process we have to tell them through an online system where we are each day for at least one hour a day five days a week. If we don't comply we get three strikes and were out and deemed as a drug user with the consequences that go with that accusation. Its an extremely important aspect of being an elite athlete and we have to take responsibility for ourselves.
Saturday saw our two one win over Germany. The first half was particularly poor from us but we stayed in the game and gave ourselves the opportunity to turn it around in the second half. Kerry Williams (Leicester) opened the scoring for us from a Mel Clelow cross and then Jo Ellis (Doncaster) or Figo also known as scored an awesome reverse stick goal after some great team inter-passing. Germany then came back and scored a corner but couldn't find the second equaliser and we were determined not to let in a goal in the dying seconds again!
I thankfully am getting back into it and managed to play the majority of both games. Despite feeling particularly match unfit! I didn't have my best games in the world but surely if selected it's all about peaking at the World Cup!
We are back to Bisham today for training again and selection is towards the latter stages of the week. So fingers crossed.
Thanks to those that came up to Cannock to watch - Olly Rogers and Taff!
For now - byeeeeee!
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